Recently in General Category

Here's a question: How can chemical companies prove that they are keen on being green (I mean sustainable - I forgot that they hate the word green...) when there's always the cloud of cynicism hanging over their heads coming from consumers?

For example, I posts these great news from various chemical companies on how they're developing new environment-friendly chemistry, or converting to renewable-based materials, or how they're reducing emissions or reducing energy consumption, or how they minimize waste, and so forth and so on.

I get more tweets doubting these companies' sincerity than praising their efforts. It is true that most of these companies want to be sustainable mostly because this route is becoming more profitable. But isn't this a win-win situation for everybody? If a company is profitable, they make jobs available, and the side benefit to this is that this profitability comes from producing chemicals and products that are more environment- and health- friendly.

So...what's the problem here?

I wonder what chemical companies (who deal with Walmart directly and indirectly) think about this new tool called GreenWERCS, which Walmart said will help them analyze the products on the market and identify risks across a broad spectrum instead of looking at each chemical individually.

The chemical screening tool GreenWERCS reportedly analyzes the composition of individual products from ingredients entered by manufacturers. It also examines potential impact of those ingredients on human health and the environment.

According to a recent blog by the Environmental Defense Fund, GreenWERCS uses a pre-identified scoring and weighting algorithm to provide information on the chemical ingredients of the products and whether they include:

* persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances (PBTs);
* carcinogens, mutagens or reproductive toxicants (CMRs); and
* potential hazardous waste.

GreenWERCS is said to represent the second phase of Walmart's new approach to assessing chemicals. Walmart's goal is to eventually set standards and metrics on the sustainability of each of the billions of products that they sell, from how they're made, how they're distributed to how they're disposed.

To know more about GreenWERCS, you can also check out the website of the company who develops the tool, the WERCS (World Environmental Regulatory Compliance Solutions).

One of the issues hotly debated in the ICIS oleochemicals conference that I attended last week in Berlin is the sustainability of palm oil. Palm oil and palm kernel oil account for majority of oleochemical feedstock used most especially in Southeast Asia.

Non-government organizations such as Friends of the Earth and GreenPeace have increasingly sounded the alarm on the unsustainability of palm oil stating fast deforestation in Southeast Asia especially Indonesia to make way for palm plantations.

One speaker from a biofuel/oleochemical producer in Belgium noted the tightening scrutiny of European Union officials in the use of palm oil and derivatives for food, biofuel and chemical production in Europe because of NGO reports of the unsustainability of palm oil. I thought I heard him mention that European regulators might even use Google map to check if palm producers are properly using land for their plantations (such as not destroying forest or using peatlands). Hmmmm.

To counteract the growing negativity of palm oil production, producers and consumers of palm oil have organized the Round table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) association and one of their goal is to form a certification proving that their palm oil products are sustainable.

Unfortunately, a recent news from the Guardian caught my attention (hence this blog post) about RSPO members having issues on setting up their sustainability standards. The problem is including calculations of greenhouse gas emissions (including emissions from land use) in their standards. Some RSPO members especially palm plantation owners are reportedly against this idea. They reasoned out that the economic and social benefits of palm oil are being eclipsed by environmental issues associated to the industry.

Palm oil, by the way, is not the only biofuel feedstock that could be affected by potential greenhouse gas emissions regulations being mulled by various governments worldwide.

Presenters at the ICIS oleochemicals conference also talked about the possible effects (especially in the US) of the new Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS2) being proposed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Under RFS2, renewable fuels must reduce GHG emissions by 50% compared with the conventional diesel they are replacing. It must also take into account indirect emissions such as land use.

The US biodiesel industry states that soybean oil-based biodiesel will not be able to meet the EPA's 50% requirement and therefore would restrict most of biodiesel feedstock to animal fats and restaurant grease.

The nice thing about traveling is you really discover something new even if you don't go out of your hotel room.

I saw this advertising on CNN International while I'm in Berlin and thought to share it. It's about Prince Charles of Wales' Rainforest Project called (of course) "The Prince's Rainforest Project." I am not sure how long it has been on TV but I sure did not see it on my local cable in the US. Or maybe I am not really watching CNN that often in the US...

The project was set up in 2007 by Prince Charles following reports from leading climate change experts, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to promote awareness of the urgent need to take action against tropical deforestation.

I think this is a very good cause worth following. You can check out some of their behind-the-scene interview on YouTube as well. By the way, the frog they're holding, is that real??

Here is another video with Sting (and others) supporting the cause!

I hope the Green Blog readers enjoyed yesterday's guest post by ICB editor Joe Chang about Dow Chemical's water sustainability event. It is not everyday that we get to play paparazzo and be able to hound celebrities.

Speaking of playing, enzyme producer Novozymes announced that the company and environmental group WWF Denmark have teamed up to launch on October 19, a board game called "Rethink Tomorrow" (they should think a more catchy name than this!) aiming to put the climate change debate in the living rooms of consumers.

The board game will be launched at the Arnold Busck bookshop in Lyngby Shopping Centre in Denmark. I'm not sure if this board game will be available outside of Denmark, though.

WWF Denmark will receive the proceeds from the game, while the buyer will get one year's free membership of WWF Denmark.

ICIS Chemical Business (the magazine I work for) published this week its automotive issue and most of the topics seem to congregate on making automobiles green via fuel efficiency and use of renewable fuels.

Andy Brice wrote "The Weighting Game" which talked about innovative chemical products (an example is biobased engineering plastics) that reduce the weight of vehicles, and thus making them more economical and reduces emissions.

Consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers wrote about the new CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards being recommended by the EPA, which calls for a new minimum average fuel economy requirements of 35.5 miles/gallon for vehicles by 2016 compared to the current 27.5 mpg. The change won't be cheap they said.

Ryan Hickman tells a story about the cash-for-clunkers auto stimulus program in the US (and worldwide), how they affected sales of new automobiles and down the road, demand for automotive chemicals and materials.

I'm receiving a lot of updates from the American Chemistry Council's Polyurethanes 2009 technical conference especially about their renewable content technical session.

Here are some presentation tidbits from that session:

• Battelle Memorial Institute reported a versatile approach to making renewable-content flexible foams derived from vegetable oils, animal fats, and fatty acids using between 20% to 40% glycerine.

• Cargill discussed their new BiOH polyol designed for the production of viscoelastic foams with very high renewable content as well as outstanding performance (in furniture applications).

• Troy Polymers talked about recycling scrap flexible polyurethane foams made with soy polyols.

• DuPont and Aragon Elastomers introduced a study of a renewably sourced high performance ingredient for polyurethanes.

• Vertellus Specialty Materials introduced high molecular weight castor oil-derived triols for a wide range of polyurethanes applications.

• Bayer MaterialScience presented about two-component polyurethane coatings for sustainable construction based on waterborne polyurethanes, natural oil polyols, and polyaspartic resins.

Meanwhile, the ACC awarded DuPont for its green innovative polyurethane technology at the event as well. DuPont received the award in the Polyurethane Chemicals category for its Cerenol® Polyol, a family of engineered renewably sourced polyetherdiols that serves as a soft segment ingredient for polyurethanes.

Starting September 30, manufacturers, purchasers and government agencies can soon evaluate how green and sustainable plastics are via a new "Plastic Scorecard" developed by nonprofit group Clean Production Action (CPA) and sustainability consulting firm Pure Strategies.

The Scorecard rates plastics from F to A+ on a set of criteria that simultaneously advance sustainable raw materials, green chemistry and closed loop systems, according to CPA. The criteria for moving up the spectrum toward "preferred plastics" were selected to progressively increase the sustainability of the plastic at each stage of its lifecycle -- from feedstock production and manufacturing to use and disposal.

"The Scorecard is essentially a decision-making tool aimed at improving the design of plastic products," said CPA's Research Director Mark Rossi. "As more and more consumers demand products that do not include toxic chemicals, companies, governments and environmental organizations need a way to assess the environmental preferability of the various alternatives."

Undertaking a list of who's who in the green chemistry start-up field is a little bit difficult to do as for one thing, promoting their business takes money, and they would rather invest their money in developing their technologies first before spreading out their name. Of course, they still have to get out and get money from the investment world so that's when we (the media) hear snippets of information of who are entering this growing sector.

Here, for example, is a new company based in Menlo Park, California, called Rennovia, (thanks to my informant from the green underworld *lol*). This early stage green chemical development company recently raised $6 million in startup funding from 5AM Ventures and Versant Ventures, as noted in their Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.

The company did not disclosed what renewable-based chemicals it will make but according to earth2tech.com, Rennovia will reveal more details in a website that they will launch in the next week or so.

According to Rennovia's co-founder Tom Boussie, in a Reuters interview, the company will focus on making chemicals, not fuels as "margins are higher, volumes are lower and the capital barrier for the same return on investment is lower."

I'm sure we will hear more from this company soon enough!

By the way, I listed down some of the green chemistry start-up companies that I've encountered so far (in no particular order). I am not sure if I should include pure-play next generation biofuel developer but maybe I should put them in another category. Let me know what you think and if there are others that I've missed:

• Amyris Biotechnologies

• Novomer

• Elevance Renewable Science

• Metabolic Explorer Entreprise de chimie biologique

• Metabolix: Bio-industrial Evolution
  

• Draths Corporation
  

• Virent Energy Systems, Inc.
  

• SiGNa Chemistry
  

• Genomatica
  

• Segetis
  

• Myriant Technologies

• BioAmber
  

• Verdezyne Inc
  

• OPX Biotechnologies
  

• Tetravitae Bioscience
  

• Green Biologics
  

• ZeaChem Inc.
  

• SynGest
  

• Enerkem
  

The green blog has been neglected these days and to compensate (especially for the male readers..Lol) here's a very important news about bioplastic invading the beauty pageant industry.

According to the Miss America Organization, it has partnered with Nature's Bottles to promote their bioplastic-based bottled water made from NatureWorks' Ingeo polylactic acid resin.

Nature's Bottles noted the use of 2.5 billion barrels/year of oil for making plastics. The company said more than 60 million petroleum-based water bottle plastics end up in landfills every day.

"We are excited to partner with an innovative and exciting new company, Nature's Bottles(TM), to promote one of the most important and socially relevant causes that face our future generations," said Art McMaster, President and CEO of the Miss America Organization.